Why athletes should not train to failure

Chris Beardsley
Nov 5, 2017 · 4 min read

Strength coaches write training programs for athletes primarily with the goal of developing
transferable strength for their sport. However, they often have the secondary goal of
increasing muscle size.

Some research indicates that training to muscular failure may improve gains in muscle size,
and this has caused some strength coaches to incorporate taking sets to failure into their
training programs.

Even so, there are actually a number of very good reasons why training to failure is not the
best approach when training athletes.

#1. No incremental benefit when using

heavy loads
Assuming that an athlete primarily needs to improve maximum strength (and not high-
velocity strength), then heavy loads are better than moderate or light loads for this goal.

This is because heavy loads enable a range of other adaptations that enhance gains in
maximum strength, including increases in tendon stiffness, lateral force transmission,
voluntary activation (neural drive), and load-specific coordination.

Training to failure enhances gains in muscle growth by increasing the amount of motor unit
recruitment. However, when using heavy loads, motor unit recruitment is almost certainly
full irrespective of the amount of fatigue that is present.

Therefore, it is very unlikely that training to failure will have any meaningful effect on the
resulting hypertrophy when using loads >85% of maximum strength in a training program,
and these are the percentages of one repetition maximum (1RM) than most strength
coaches will (hopefully) be using when developing maximum strength.

#2. Smaller gains in high-velocity strength

Assuming that an athlete primarily needs to improve high-velocity strength, then lifting
light loads with fast bar speeds, while avoiding fatigue is valuable for achieving this goal.

Research has shown that by stopping sets before fatigue causes a reduction in bar speed,
gains in high-velocity strength and transfer to sports performance in fast movements like
sprinting and jumping can be enhanced (although muscle growth is reduced).

Strength training naturally causes a shift from very fast (type IIX) to moderately fast (type
IIA) muscle fibers, and this has a negative impact on high-velocity strength. This is why
conventional strength training always produces greater improvements at the force-end of
the force-velocity spectrum than at the velocity-end.

However, by stopping sets before fatigue causes a reduction in bar speed, the proportion of
type IIX fibers that are converted to type IIA fibers can be reduced, and this may contribute
to the proportionally greater gains in high-velocity strength.

#3. More muscle damage

We tend to think of muscle damage as being caused by heavy eccentric (lowering) muscle
contractions because of disruptions to the muscle fibers caused by the high levels of
mechanical loading.

However, it seems very likely that muscle damage can also be caused by a sustained
excitation-induced influx of calcium ions under conditions of low energy status and
hypoxia, which is what happens when training under fatiguing conditions.

When levels of calcium ions are elevated for extended time, proteases known as calpains
and phospholipases are activated. These break down the ultrastructure of the muscle cell
and the sarcolemma, and can cause muscle fiber damage.

Thus, it is likely that training to failure causes more muscle damage than avoiding failure,
even when using very light loads. This may reduce motivation to train, decrease the ability
of an athlete to train regularly, and interfere with competition performance. Whether
regularly experiencing higher levels of muscle damage also any adverse long-term effects is
unknown.

#4. Slower recovery, and lower training

frequency
Athletes often need to train regularly, and strength training workouts are sometimes
squeezed into gaps in a congested schedule of sports practices, conditioning, and
competitions.

Therefore, it is helpful if a training session does not require a long period of time to recover
from, as this can reduce the number of training sessions that can be done each week, disrupt
other training, and interfere with match performance.

Training to failure increases the length of time that is needed before another strength
returns to baseline levels, likely for several reasons, including a greater depletion of energy
stores within the muscle, higher levels of peripheral fatigue, and greater muscle damage.
And importantly, the amount of recovery time required when training to failure is greater
when using lighter loads, compared to when using heavy loads.

What is the takeaway?

Training to failure likely has no incremental benefit for hypertrophy when training with
heavy loads to achieve gains in maximum strength, because it works through increasing
motor unit recruitment, and motor unit recruitment is already full with heavy loads. Also, it
has *adverse* effects when trying to improve high-velocity strength, because it accelerates
the conversion of fast to moderately-fast muscle fibers, which reduces contraction velocity.

Training to failure likely produces more muscle damage compared to not training to failure,
perhaps through a mechanism involving the prolonged release of calcium ions triggering
the degradation of the inside of the muscle cell. Moreover, it reduces training frequency by
increasing the time taken to recover from a workout, compared to avoiding failure, and this
effect is larger when lifting light loads than when using heavy loads.